NEW YORK: A fifth (19%) of consumer-facing brands and a quarter (27%) of ad agencies worldwide say mobile advertising is a top priority for their business, yet concerns linger over measurement and privacy, a new survey has revealed.

For its 2015 Global Location Snapshot report, mobile ad platform xAd polled 574 ad agency representatives and brand-side marketers across 11 countries in four key regions – North America, Western Europe, Asia Pacific and Latin America.

It found more than half of both brand marketers and ad agency leaders view mobile marketing as a significant priority, including those who think it is a top priority, but 3-in-10 say trouble over measuring campaign success is their top concern.

Privacy is also a concern for marketers and agencies across the four regions, although it is bigger issue in North America (24%) and Western Europe (22%) than in Latin America (17%), where consumers ignoring ads (21%) is seen as the top challenge.

Another key finding in the report is that nearly 80% of marketers are using location-based targeting, with audience targeting regarded as their main focus in these campaigns.

50% of agencies and 46% brand marketers use audience targeting in location advertising, although proximity targeting is used by 43% of agencies and 37% of brand marketers. Sending location-relevant messages is used by about a third of each.

Globally, two-thirds of marketers believe consumers are either currently engaged with mobile advertising, or will be in the future, and all regions expect mobile adspend to increase over the next year. Most growth is expected to occur in Latin America and Asia Pacific.

With global mobile adspend expected to top $67bn in 2015, according to eMarketer estimates, and location-based marketing on track to grow very quickly, the report said the issues identified as potential obstacles need to be addressed.

"The results of xAd's Global Location Snapshot prove that mobile and location are top of mind for marketers worldwide," the report said.

"They believe consumers are receptive to mobile advertising and plan to grow budgets accordingly. […] The biggest issue impacting location-based mobile advertising growth is the lack of a mobile-first attribution model. Privacy concerns are also prevalent across all regions."

Data sourced from xAd; additional content by Warc staff